Yankees Not Totally Dead, Just Mostly

The New York Yankees have finally emerged from the hellish abyss of sub-.500 baseball. This weekend, the Bombers took [three out of four road games] from the woeful Tampa Bay Devil Rays, [improving their record](http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings) to 45-44 and cutting the first-place Red Sox’s lead to nine games—the first time it’s been single digits since June 15. Yankee fans might want to temper their excitement, however, as the team struggled even with Major League Baseball’s most innocuous opponent. The Devil Rays, who possess the league’s worst record, held 3-0 leads in both Saturday’s and Sunday’s contests, before the Yankees fought back to grab Ws in each of those games. Still, that’s a big improvement for a team whose catcher accused them of going “[through the motions](http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2007/07/01/2007-07-01_posada_cant_mask_feelings-3.html)” earlier this month and harangued them for being heartless. But the Yankees return home tonight for a four-game set with the Toronto Blue Jays, who sit just one game behind New York in the AL East standings, so let’s see how they do against some real competition before flooding the box office to reserve postseason tickets.